Star Dust

Orphan's last release for 2022.

The 1992 sci-fi OVA Star Dust is the brainchild of Itano Ichirou, a well-known action director who worked on Megazone 23, Macross, and other famous series. Most recently, he developed the creatures in the SSSS.* series. It's an odd duck. I wonder if the pitch meeting went something like this:

Itano: Let's do an environmentally-themed sci-fi show set in space, with lots of action.
Producer: Okay:
Itano: And to spice it up, I'll include a heaping side-order of racism!
Producer: Tasty!

Well, maybe not exactly like that, but it's hard to explain Star Dust's mixture of straight-up sci-fi spaceship action with racism in both the dialog and the character designs. Maybe it made more sense 30 years ago.

Star Dust is set in the "distant" future: 2022 (that is, now). The Earth has been totally polluted by its increasing amounts of waste. As Bill Steele's 1971 song said,

Garbage (garbage, garbage, garbage) Garbage!
We're filling up the sea with garbage (garbage...)
What will we do when there's no place left
To put all the garbage? (garbage...)

The solution, according to the show, is to shoot the waste into space via a giant catapult and then transport it to the Sun for incineration (if it's harmless) or to Jupiter (if it's hazardous). Let's ignore the slight problem in orbital mechanics that makes this impractical or impossible and accept the premise. The UN sets up an enforcement mechanism, Cosmo Ecology, to make sure that companies don't cheat and dump hazardous waste in the Sun. Star Dust is about one encounter between a Cosmo Ecology patrol ship and a waste-contraband runner trying to dump radioactive waste into the Sun.

Star Dust opens with two disposal trucks, one filthy and driven by a brown-skinned man, and one immaculate, driven by a Japanese man and a white man, stop at a "filling station" to refuel on water. The Japanese character is drawn like a World War II caricature:

The Japanese man disparages the other truck (and by implication, its driver) as dirty and disgusting. The brown-skin man replies that the yellow and white men are responsible for polluting the Earth. It almost ends in a brawl, but a garbage container launch on the catapult requires everyone to shelter in place. The action transitions to space.

An unarmed space tug is wrestling the garbage container into place on a tanker, the Sandy T. The pilot of the tug is our hero, Saki. Based on data from his homemade sensor, he believes the container is full of radioactive waste. His white female supervisor, Lt. Cresson, berates him for slowing down the transfer. To get more evidence, he scrapes the container and shows his captain that it is a special coating designed to conceal radiation. Cresson dismisses his evidence in racist terms before her superior, Captain Fox, tells her to pipe down. He also doesn't feel the evidence is compelling, but his superior on Earth does and tells them to investigate the tanker.

The tanker is indeed running contraband and refuses to stop when ordered. Captain Fox scrambles his fighters to intercept, led by the all-American team leader, Robert Ryan. Ryan doesn't give a damn about the mission; he's only interested in getting back in time for his date with Lt. Cresson. Ryan calls Saki a "four-eyed, buck-toothed, yellow shrimp" for triggering this incident and beats him up. Saki, who is also drawn like a World War II caricature, then points out the obvious.

Ryan and his team are suckered into an encounter with the tanker's secret weapon, a stealth fighter. Their ships are blown up or disabled. Saki is the only pilot left, and his unarmed tug the only craft still able to fly. Despite the way he's been mistreated, Saki flies out to save the day, with only his wits and his homemade sensor to aid him. He succeeds, Ryan and Cresson learn their lesson (and still get their date), everyone pledges to behave better, and the OVA ends.

I don't have a problem with a Japanese anime portraying Western racism in savagely negative terms while ignoring Japan's own blemished record on the subject. I don't have a problem with the portrayal of Saki as having both superior intellect and superior principles (he's against lethal violence). I do have a problem with the visual caricatures employed - of the Japanese characters, the brown-skinned truck driver, and the impossibly good-looking western spaceship officers. Perhaps, as the translator suggested, the only thing to do is to let that part of the anime just sit there and enjoy the space action sequences, which were Itano's specialty.

I only have a small fraction of the voice cast, because the characters named in the credits are, by and large, never called by name during the show:

• Matsuno Taiki (Saki) played the title role in the second Kindaichi movie (an Orphan release) and every subsequent show in the franchise. He starred in Exper Zenon and appeared in Fukuyama Gekijou and Chameleon, all Orphan releases. He played Kouga in Inuyasha and the title role in The Adventures of the Little Prince.
• Nakamura Hidetoshi (Captain Fox) appeared in Ai no Kusabi, Nana Toshi Monogatari, and Exper Zenon, all Orphan releases.
• Yao Kazuki (Ryan) played Franky in One Piece, the lead in Makyou Gaiden Le Deus, the title role in Rance, Dark Schneider in Bastard!!, Chivas in Sorcerer on the Rocks, and Yoki in Fullmetal Alchemist (both versions). He also played the title role in Hameln no Violin Hiki,  Morbridge Jr in Nana Toshi Monogatari, K.K. in Elf 17, Date Ikkaku in Akai Hayate, Ryougaku in Wild 7, and Sofue Akira in Boyfriend, all Orphan releases.
• Tominaga Miina (Cresson) played Ritsu in Fruits Basket (2002), Persia in Magical Fairy Persia, Rollpanna in the Anpanman franchise, Misaki in Tsuritama, Muuma in Bavi Stock, Kamiya in Tokimeki Tonight, Hikaru in Chameleon, Karen in Yuukan Club, and Eri in Karuizawa Syndrome. The last five are Orphan releases.
• Umezu Hideyuki (Saddam, weapons officer on the tanker) played Akadama-sensei in Uchouten Kazoku and Uranos Corsica in Gangsta. He had featured roles in Apfelland Monogatari, Blue Sonnet, Hashire Melos, Hi-Speed Jecy, Hidamari no Ki, Nana Toshi Monogatari, Neko Neko Fantasia, Singles, the What's Michael? OVAs, Yamato 2520, and Ziggy Sore Yuke! R&R Band, all Orphan releases.
• Sasaki Nozomu (Mars, another fighter pilot) starred as Tetsuo in Akira, Ebata in Genji Part 1, Ushio in the original Ushio to Tora, Urameshi in the Yu Yu Hakusho franchise, and Mello in Death Note. He played Dekiru in Izumo, Taiga in Nagasarete Airantou, Hal in Next Senki Ehrgeiz, Wataru in Blue Sonnet, and Ling Fei-Long in Dragon Fist, all Orphan releases.
  

Who are Jimmy Dean, Terence Young, Dennis Brown, Giancarlo Nini, as identified in the credits? Only the director, Itano Ichirou, who also wrote the story, knows.

Iri translated the show. ninjacloud timed. I edited and styled (no typesetting). Topper3000 and Uchuu QCed; Uchuu provided the link about orbital mechanics. Interpid encoded from a Japanese VHS tape. The show was never released on laserdisc or digital media. One can understand why.

So here's Star Dust. Like the curate's egg, it's good in parts. You can get the show from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #new on irc.rizon.net.